If search engine is your gateway to the web, solving and providing the right information you seek for; Rajeev Rastogi can be termed as the genie behind who with his deep expertise and constant research find answers to some of the most intriguing technology challenges of search engines today. “Nothing is more amazing and exciting than the world of search. There are billions of web pages out there. How to provide the user with the most relevant information each time keeping in mind the user behavior or demographic pattern is the most challenging game today,” says Rastogi, VP and Head of Yahoo Innovation Lab in India.

Like a curious kid who would not rest until he solves his last piece of puzzle, Rastogi pursues some of the most puzzling phenomenon of information extraction technology today. “It is like solving a puzzle. Each piece though looks unrelated has to be co-related to make it complete. Each time you fix the right piece, the puzzle gets clearer” adds he. Nothing could be more challenging to a man who realized very early in life that he could never do anything which did not have a challenge. The cut-throat competition among search engines has ensured the players are keenly attuned to keeping their visitors satisfied. But serving up handy links is a tricky business, especially when we searchers often use ambiguous terms.

At Yahoo! his team looks at some of the core computer science problems — specifically around data mining — and create solutions that in the long term will deliver a more relevant experience for users and advertisers. “This is an important area to focus on now, with Internet content and data only continue to expand as more people and machines are connected” says Rastogi.

Prior to joining Yahoo!, Rastogi was the founding director of Bell Labs India. He was a Bell Labs Fellow and Distinguished Member of its Technical Staff. Currently, he also sits on the editorial board of Communications for the Association for Computing Machinery (CACM). He has published over 125 papers on database systems and information storage and management and holds over 40 patents.

Rastogi‘s background and expertise in product development, as well as his deep experience in research plays a key role in leading some of the new approaches to information extraction and machine learning, multimedia and query processing in Yahoo!.